Anti-Confederation Party

Anti- Confederation Party was the name of several political parties in the Atlantic provinces of Canada, who turned in the 1860s to its accession to the Canadian Confederation. While the movement in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia had no success, Newfoundland remained independent for another eight decades.

Nova Scotia

In Nova Scotia, the "anti- Konföderationisten " by Joseph Howe were cited. They tried to join the decision of the Parliament of the Confederacy, to undo. The accession was in the population at the beginning highly controversial: it was believed before, due to its location by the sea have Nova Scotia a much closer relationship with the United Kingdom and New England. The turn to areas in the interior of the continent make particular from economic point of view makes little sense.

1867 won this grouping in elections to the House of Representatives of Nova Scotia 36 of 38 seats and formed the government under William Annand. At the general election in 1867 18 of the 19 seats went to the opponents of the Confederacy. The United Kingdom was not willing to accept the secession of Nova Scotia and insisted on the merger. Howe gave the British pressure and got a little later a Minister in John Macdonald's government, which led to the collapse of the movement.

New Brunswick

At the top of the movement in New Brunswick was Albert James Smith, whose coalition of conservatives and reformers in 1865 won the elections to the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick. However, only one year later, she suffered a crushing defeat by the Confederation Party by Peter Mitchell. Subsequently, the Parliament adopted the accession to the confederation with 38 votes to 1 at.

While in Nova Scotia and elsewhere, proponents of the Confederacy were mostly Conservative and Liberal opponents mainly, the break went to New Brunswick by both political camps. Both Smith and Mitchell were Conservatives, while the Liberals Samuel Leonard Tilley was one of the most prominent proponents and later to the Federal Cabinet by John Macdonald joined. 1870 dissolved the Anti- Confederation Party and the Confederation Party and were replaced by the original Liberal and Conservative parties.

Newfoundland

In Newfoundland, the businessman Charles Fox Bennett, one of the richest inhabitants of the island, the opponents of accession led to. The opposition to the accession was always very pronounced here: So Newfoundland was not invited to the 1864 Charlottetown Conference and the Quebec Conference in the same year only observers were sent without negotiating mandate. When the Anti- Confederation Party won the 1869 elections, the candidate was finally no more option and Newfoundland remained a British colony. Only in 1949 entered the Dominion Newfoundland in after a protracted political and economic crisis of the Confederacy.